City of Jacksonville-Beaches money dispute heats up over landfill fees

A Jacksonville city councilman’s draft bill designed to resolve a bitter landfill fee dispute between the city and Atlantic and Neptune beaches has instead caused more divisiveness as Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown described the legislation as unfair and costly for anyone not living at the Beaches.

City Council President Bill Gulliford, who wrote the draft and whose district covers the Beaches, and Beaches mayors impacted by the dispute accused Brown and his administration of failing to understand the needs of the coastal communities.

A letter Brown sent to the mayors of the two communities Wednesday said the draft bill does not address several remedies proposed by the city to help resolve an impasse in which Jacksonville says Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach owe it more than $1.4 million in “tipping fees” for solid waste dumped at the Trail Ridge Landfill since 2011. Jacksonville Beach does not have such an agreement with Jacksonville.

A BUDGET FEE

Jacksonville officials, as part of the consolidated county government, began charging the two coastal communities after the City Council added the fee to the budget. Jacksonville says about $370,000 annually from Atlantic Beach and $200,000 from Neptune Beach pays for using the landfill.

But the two smaller cities complained about a variety of problems with the fees, including fears over hidden charges.

The city officials said the proposed bill only covers a proposal for Jacksonville to expand its garbage collection into the two coastal cities.

That proposal would negate the need in the future for the two smaller cities to pay the fee for private contractors to dump residential garbage in the landfill. Jacksonville would charge the cities $12.65 per household for monthly garbage collection by its haulers, the same fee paid by Jacksonville residents.

The $12.65 charge would then be passed on to their residential customers as part of their current garbage fee: $17.78 in Atlantic Beach and $22 a month in Neptune.

But Jim Robinson, Jacksonville’s director of public works, said the reduced charge at the beach would still cost Jacksonville taxpayers about $200,000 a year because of the added travel expense for the city’s haulers.

WATER QUALITY CREDITS

Missing from the bill is a proposal to make up that difference and cut the tipping fees owed to the city in half by granting Jacksonville “water quality credits” for improvements to the quality of the St. Johns River that the Beaches cities produced in part by improvements to their wastewater treatment plants, Robinson said.

Jacksonville has planned to use the credits to meet a commitment it made to the state in 2008 to help the health of the St. Johns River.

The Beaches cities and Jacksonville each have environmental permits that are overseen by the state and trading credits is a way one city can use the other’s work to meet the state’s requirements.

The city agreed in 2008 to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus flowing into the river, joining a pledge that governments from the Beaches to Putnam County signed at the same time.

But the Florida Department of Environmental Protection warned the city last summer that it was late in following up on the commitment and needed to show specific steps it would take.

The city told DEP in September that it expected to buy “credits” from Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, JEA and the Florida Department of Transportation. But Gulliford’s proposal doesn’t include the Beaches offerings.

Another proposal missing from the bill is Jacksonville’s providing a portion of the existing service routes for trash hauler SWS/Republic to hauler Advanced Disposal as offsetting mitigation for the cancellation of existing service with Atlantic Beach.

Brown wrote that he was “concerned and surprised” to discover the draft ordinance did not include the full slate of ideas, which city officials discussed with Gulliford in a series of meetings beginning in June. The Times-Union obtained the letter Wednesday.

“While the city of Jacksonville taking over collection and disposal could be part of an overall settlement, it cannot be the only aspect of that settlement,” Brown wrote. “This approach without other steps would create a nearly $200,000 operating loss to our Solid Waste Enterprise Fund.”

Gulliford said he was upset that Brown would send the letter to the mayors without discussing the concerns with him. He also said giving Jacksonville the water credits that could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Beaches would not be prudent.

STILL TWEAKING

Gulliford said he was still tweaking the bill and didn’t know when it would be introduced.

“The longer this thing goes on, the bigger the [disputed] amount gets,” Gulliford said. “It’s going to end up in court, which will not be to the benefit of any of the parties.”

Neptune Beach Mayor Harriet Pruette said Brown’s stance is a continuing bullying of the Beaches, which she said gets little support from the city.

“I’m having some heartburn over this,” Pruette said.

“We know we’re going to have to pay tipping fees, but I don’t think Alvin Brown and his staff is doing one thing to help us out.”

Atlantic Beach Mayor Carolyn Woods blamed Jacksonville officials for dragging out the process and adding more demands to solve the problem than is necessary.

“The waters are just getting muddied,” Woods said.

But Robinson, the public works director, said the city is trying to ensure that everyone impacted will be treated fairly.

“This requires comprehensive treatment to end a debate that goes back to 2011,” Robinson said. “Trying to incrementally solve it doesn’t work.”

The city of Jacksonville attempted to bully tipping fees out of Atlantic and Neptune Beach years ago. Now the latest excuse is fuel costs for a trash hauler that doesn't even exist. Nice.

Now the city of Jacksonville wants to bully clean water credits away.

Excuse me, but beaches did what they had to do financially to make wastewater plant and other key improvements that earned them clean water credits. The beaches deserve lots of credit for doing their part to keep the St. John's River.

Jacksonville, on the other hand, is famous for doing nothing more than budgeting tax dollars, including tax dollars from beaches residents, to pay all the violation fines for the JEA's clean water standards non-compliance. They are also famous for soliciting the most favorable research studies tax dollars can buy in an effort to avoid cleaning up the JEA's St. John's River pollution problem.

The mayor of Jacksonville talks about the beaches communities like a segregationist wanting to keep Trail Ridge Landfill a "Jacksonville-only" dump. Wow, what a guy!

The beaches should take our clean water credits elsewhere. These credits are assets. Use our assets wisely.

We know when we're offended. Thank you Mayor Brown! Thank you very much!

Under my proposed agreement people in Neptune Beach would continue to pay $22. per month. The City of Jacksonville would simply assume the contract with the waste company for $12.65 per month per resident (which is the uniform charge throughout the county), then bill Neptune Beach each month accordingly. The difference would be used by the city of Neptune Beach for enhanced services, etc.

As for the present interlocal agreement between Jax and the Beaches, that was unfortunately negotiated and finalized after I left office. Regrettably it wasn't done very well.

Ocean County? I continue to dream but it would have been an incredibly tough issue in the Florida Legislature.

If you have any other questions my email is gulliford@coj.net and yes, I do answer emails.

The beaches pay to clean up the river like responsible citizens and the big city fat cats do absolutely nothing to improve their filthy wastewater discharge. Now they shake us down for clean water credits? Nice.

Is it really true that the JEA shirks on their own responsibility to clean up the river?

Is it true the reason they are shaking down the beaches for clean water credits is to avoid budgeting more tax dollars to cover their own wastewater violations?

Can somebody tell us the actual amount of tax dollars to the nearest hundred thousand the JEA budgets for wastewater violations each year?

Can somebody calculate the exact tally of tax dollars the JEA has spent studying their personal river problem angling for a way to circumvent clean river regulations?

Are we foolish enough to suggest that beach tax dollars don't go there?

You wonder why our forefathers fought off consolidation so hard? Now that the city of Jacksonville has revealed their plan to lay siege to the beaches to crush our ability to generate self-sustaining revenue, it should be crystal-clear.

The city of Jacksonville exhibits all the signs of indifference and bigotry familiar during the civil rights struggle of the 1960s. Forcing county citizens at the beach to pay more simply because "they're the beaches" is just wonderful.

So a resident of Neptune Beach would pay $12.65 + the $22 he currently pays for(=)$34.65 for having the wonderful once-a-week City of Jacksonville garbage collection ? What a deal. This new charge is based on a clause in the interlocal agreement between COJ and Cities of Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach that said whenever the COJ started charging its residents a garbage fee the two beaches cities would have to begin paying tipping fees at the COJ landfill ? Isn't City Council President Gulliford a former city commissioner and mayor for Atlantic Beach ? Wasn't he around for these interlocal agreements ? Didn't he join the chorus promoting Ocean County ? What happened ?
Local politicians are constantly spinning how modern day environmental and other costs are increasing garbage collection costs and that landfills and other means of garbage disposal are very expensive. The solution is to give the COJ monopsony power over garbage collection. Nonsense. Neptune Beach has gone from 5 day-a-week garbage collection to this silliness, all due to political ineptness. The poor people of Jacksonville are really poorly served. What's wrong with subscription garbage service ? Why the monopoly situation in each county over permitted landfills ?